Rising star: Many women should wait until they are at least 30 to have children or risk falling behind on the career ladder, says Labour's Lucy Powell

Many women should wait until they are at least 30 to have children or risk falling behind on the career ladder, says a Labour frontbencher.

Taking time off to have a family in their 20s could mean lagging behind male colleagues and struggling to close the gap in pay and status, according to childcare spokesman Lucy Powell.

The married mother of three, who had her first child at 34, condemned comments by TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp who said she would advise her daughter to have a baby before university – because their fertility ‘falls off a cliff’ at 35.

MIss Allsopp said earlier this year that if she had a daughter her advice would be: ‘Darling, do you know what? Don’t go to university.

‘Start work straight after school, stay at home, save up your deposit – I’ll help you, let’s get you into a flat. And then we can find you a nice boyfriend and you can have a baby by the time you’re 27.’

The comments triggered a row as some people accused her of discouraging aspiration among young women, while others praised her plain-speaking.

But Miss Powell said Miss Allsopp had given young women ‘terrible advice’. She said: ‘It’s such a backwards step for the advancement of women in our country.

‘Obviously when you have kids is a personal decision, but I think it’s irresponsible for anybody to encourage young women to have a family before they’ ve had a career.

‘We are in 2014 and women still face a motherhood penalty when they have children.

‘All the research shows their career trajectory slows down, and they invariably take a pay and status penalty compared with the rest of their colleagues when they have children.

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‘The conclusion you can draw is that earlier you have children the bigger and bigger the penalty you will pay across your lifetime.’

The average age at which a British mother has children is now 29.8 years – an all-time high. Some studies have put the gender pay gap a woman suffers over her working life at £250,000.

Disadvantages: Taking time off to have a family in their 20s could mean lagging behind male colleagues and struggling to close the gap in pay and status, according to the childcare spokesman (file picture)

Miss Powell said this was ‘something we have to tackle as a society’ by improving childcare provision and encouraging firms to offer flexible or part-time working to parents.

‘Of course there will be individuals for whom it doesn’t matter’, Miss Powell said. ‘But for women as a whole [having children in their 20s] only furthers the gender pay gap.

‘Women today really grapple with this issue of when is the right time to have children, and it’s a very difficult one. The last thing they need is more pressure to do it earlier.’

She added that in her own experience it could be easier to negotiate over duties at the workplace, such as not timing meetings during the school run, when reaching a position of seniority.

Criticised: The married mother of three, who had her first child at 34, condemned comments by TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp (pictured) who said she would advise her daughter to have a baby before university

The Manchester Central MP’s husband is an accident and emergency doctor and they have a daughter, four, a one-year-old son and an older stepson.

Kirstie Allsopp, 42, who had her two sons at the age 35 and 37 but advised other young women to start earlier, said in the interview: ‘Women are being let down by the system. We should speak honestly and frankly about fertility and the fact it falls off a cliff when you’re 35.

‘At the moment, women have 15 years to go to university, get their career on track, try and buy a home, and have a baby. That is a hell of a lot to ask someone. As a passionate feminist, I feel we have not been honest enough with women about this issue.’

‘Some of the greatest pain that I have seen among friends is the struggle to have a child. It wasn’t all people who couldn’t start early enough because they hadn’t met the right person. But there is a huge inequality, which is that women have this time pressure that men don’t have.

‘And I think if you’re a man of 25 and you’re with a woman of 25, and you really love her, then you have a responsibility to say: ‘Let’s do it now.’